tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post3548269006592841638..comments2015-03-31T18:04:30.551+01:00Comments on separated by a common language: bollardslynneguisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10171345732985610861noreply@blogger.comBlogger30125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-59871900658111597722014-02-04T01:11:32.357+00:002014-02-04T01:11:32.357+00:00This link tells you all you might wish to know abo...<a href="http://blog.inkyfool.com/2013/05/pylons.html" rel="nofollow">This link</a> tells you all you might wish to know about the meanings of <i>pylon</i> — except for how it came to mean &#39;traffic cone&#39;.<br /><br />Incidentally, Hamlet&#39;s <i>bourn</i> as in<br /><br /><i>But that the dread of something after death,<br />The undiscovered country, from whose bourn<br />No traveller returns, puzzles the will</i><br /><br />would have looked rather like a bollard.<br /><br />(In modern French, <b>bornes</b> still mark boundaries, but may have a lot more functions beside, many of them similar to our bollards.)David Crosbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01858358459416955921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-70626845434473932902014-02-03T19:34:49.807+00:002014-02-03T19:34:49.807+00:00Is there a British term for what people in the Was...<i>Is there a British term for what people in the Washington, D.C. area call a &quot;Jersey barrier&quot;? </i><br /><br />Those of us not in the trade don&#39;t use the term, but an outfit called <a href="http://www.safesitefacilities.co.uk/products/barriers-traffic-management/concrete-barriers" rel="nofollow">Safesite</a> advertises (among other things) to the trade:<br /><br /><i>Concrete barrier blocks or jersey barriers are a simple and effective way to secure your empty premises against unwelcome visits from trespassers, vandals, fly tippers and travellers. Concrete security barriers may be placed across the access to a property, or around the perimeter to block vehicular access. We provide concrete sleepers in either 1.5m, 2.5m or 3m lengths, which can be bolted together with our state of the art interlocking system to create a virtually impenetrable concrete barrier.</i>David Crosbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01858358459416955921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-9180629338069678642014-02-03T12:41:23.161+00:002014-02-03T12:41:23.161+00:00Traffic cones are called traffic cones in Australi...Traffic cones are called traffic cones in Australia, but are more commonly informally referred to as &quot;witches hats&quot;.David Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18188718326887807473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-86656524332987466052011-09-20T16:51:01.983+01:002011-09-20T16:51:01.983+01:00Pylon, for me (AmE, NorCal) is a concrete support ...Pylon, for me (AmE, NorCal) is a concrete support structure, things that support freeway overpasses or parking garages/car parksJenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03685928885573020986noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-23711588905210034252011-09-20T14:33:51.420+01:002011-09-20T14:33:51.420+01:00(And just because the picture is in Missouri doesn...(And just because the picture is in Missouri doesn&#39;t mean you speak AmE.)lynneguisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10171345732985610861noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-30925687909997277972011-09-20T14:33:24.468+01:002011-09-20T14:33:24.468+01:00Well, if one reads the fine print below the pictur...Well, if one reads the fine print below the picture, one can find out it&#39;s in Missouri. But it might&#39;ve been nice to tell us!lynneguisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10171345732985610861noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-6379173596842482492011-09-20T14:11:34.055+01:002011-09-20T14:11:34.055+01:00See link. It gives location.See link. It gives location.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-73418591604550252312011-09-20T14:02:27.157+01:002011-09-20T14:02:27.157+01:00For me, pylon isn&#39;t a word I&#39;ve experience...For me, pylon isn&#39;t a word I&#39;ve experienced, except for news coverage of the art on top of these pylons: <br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bartle_Hall_from_southwest.jpg<br /><br />Reading the post, I was thinking, &quot;why is the word pylon so familiar, yet I&#39;ve no meaning attached it it?&quot;... took me a bit to realize, that&#39;s because I only have one very specific referent for it, and even there, the discussion was not about the pylons, but the artwork on top.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-68769737210707152222011-09-20T14:00:32.035+01:002011-09-20T14:00:32.035+01:00Anonymous, can you tell us which dialect you speak...Anonymous, can you tell us which dialect you speak?lynneguisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10171345732985610861noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-13702853856827485202011-09-20T13:56:23.433+01:002011-09-20T13:56:23.433+01:00For me, these are pylons:
http://en.wikipedia.org/...For me, these are pylons:<br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bartle_Hall_Pylons_from_12th_Street.jpg<br /><br />Which doesn&#39;t quite fit any of the dictionary definitions, but isn&#39;t too far off.<br /><br />And I do mean those specific structures, not just things like that. I actually had to think about where I know the word from, and finally remembered, oh yeah, those things above Bartle Hall.<br /><br />Basically, things that might be called pylons don&#39;t make the news much, but those did.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-30603006623524839902011-04-04T15:27:09.087+01:002011-04-04T15:27:09.087+01:00I love the word &quot;bollard&quot; but it&#39;s o...I love the word &quot;bollard&quot; but it&#39;s one of those words that, for me, doesn&#39;t sound right in an AmE accent--the vowel in the 2nd syllable gets turned into a schwa-ish thing.<br /><br />Quasi-relatedly, my Québecois husband uses &quot;chicane&quot; to mean a disagreement. It&#39;s also a verb, apparently, as he sometimes says &quot;Je veux pas chicaner avec toi.&quot; I&#39;ve never heard this usage in French-from-France but I don&#39;t know any French people well enough to <i>chicaner</i> with them!Laurahttp://dldancers.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-37893893515888230892007-08-12T02:03:00.000+01:002007-08-12T02:03:00.000+01:00I've never seen a Jersey barrier in the UK, so I'm...I've never seen a Jersey barrier in the UK, so I'm not sure that there is a word for it. Recently, I was in a situation in which there would have definitely been Jersey barriers in the US (closure of some lanes in a fairly complicated interchange) and there had to be a hundred traffic cones/pylons, but nothing that would have seriously kept the traffic away...lynneguisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10171345732985610861noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-21336447995139736472007-08-08T16:03:00.000+01:002007-08-08T16:03:00.000+01:00Is there a British term for what people in the Was...Is there a British term for what people in the Washington, D.C. area call a "Jersey barrier"? When I mentioned that term (which was new to me) to my boyfriend, who lived in London for several years, he assumed it was a reference to Jersey in the Channel Islands, while I assumed it referred to New Jersey, but I hate the blasted things either way.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-12654048627039901292007-02-20T18:27:00.000+00:002007-02-20T18:27:00.000+00:00The original bollards, I believe (CBATCI) were cap...The original bollards, I believe (CBATCI) were captured bronze cannon turned on their muzzles, which is why older ones are narrower at the bottom than at the top ...mcornellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03979613628927451767noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-23101156433435572152007-02-14T15:44:00.000+00:002007-02-14T15:44:00.000+00:00No no, four-letter acronyms are XTLAs - eXtended T...No no, four-letter acronyms are XTLAs - eXtended Three-Letter Acronyms!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-27392507751453475192007-01-03T19:04:00.000+00:002007-01-03T19:04:00.000+00:00There are only 17,576 TLAs, so when you run out yo...There are only 17,576 TLAs, so when you run out you have to go to ETLAs, or Extended Three-Letter Acronyms.John Cowanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00249694466806473955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-77873140125172215582006-12-08T17:00:00.000+00:002006-12-08T17:00:00.000+00:00That's a bit strange, I've totally different exper...That's a bit strange, I've totally different experiences with the AmE words here. Bollard was a common word at University (norther California), as the campus was littered with them, and I've never heard the pointy orange things be described as anything but traffic cones (New York). If you said pylon, I wouldn't have the faintest idea that you meant the traffic cone.ELChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06891823284878208984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-87848145764851022452006-12-08T01:01:00.000+00:002006-12-08T01:01:00.000+00:00I thought you might like to know - belatedly, I've...I thought you might like to know - belatedly, I've only just discovered your blog - that my mother used to use "bollard" in place of the usual profanities but in front of children. As in "BOLLARD I just stubbed my toe". Presumably for the same reason as Janet, but not through an error originally.Potentillahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07694527334172283794noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-84985720487196166822006-11-26T03:55:00.000+00:002006-11-26T03:55:00.000+00:00Bollard is used in the US construction, archtectur...Bollard is used in the US construction, archtecture and landscape industries. But that's still not enough to make it 'public' knowledge. Similarly, you might look at gabion, tabaret, and charrette as architectural/engineering terms that aren't au fait in wider discourse.dpnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-79569626752272641152006-11-24T13:38:00.000+00:002006-11-24T13:38:00.000+00:00Hi! Sorry for being a bit silent of late, but I'm...Hi! Sorry for being a bit silent of late, but I'm trying to catch up!<br /><br />I throughly enjoyed all of the "traffic" words. Reminds me of having to learn all of the alterative British terms when I was going for my UK DrivING LicenCe!<br /><br />Just one more comment -- when I first moved to England almost 4 years ago, I kept getting "bollards" and "bollocks" confused! (Oops!) So that has led to our personal use of the term "Bollards"! as an exclamation!<br /><br />Hope you also did YOUR best to enjoy "Thanksgiving" here. I found writing on Lord Celery about my homesickness yesterday helped me cope -- as did the Chicken Quesadillas that John made for me!!<br /><br />Janet<br /><br />(lordcelery.blogspot.com)Janethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07129849948927562781noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-12337341446027685092006-11-22T14:54:00.000+00:002006-11-22T14:54:00.000+00:00Since you are so gracious, Ms Guist, about my corp...Since you are so gracious, Ms Guist, about my corporate trivia, may I try your patience further by saying that I once worked for IBM's telephony division and we were being briefed for this project at a presentation involving lots of OHP foils (no poncey PowerPoint in them days) which were richly festooned with telecoms-jargon and acronyms. Towards the end of the meeting, the presenter said: "And at this point I'm afraid I must introduce you to yet another TLA." So far everyone had been nodding a great deal and pretending that they were understanding all the technical talk but, this time, somebody's nerve broke and they asked what the blazes a TLA was. TLA, it turned out, stood for "three-letter abbreviation".Paul Danonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04816761952837296368noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-31091260170250789452006-11-22T04:29:00.000+00:002006-11-22T04:29:00.000+00:00The bollard pictured on the upper right reminds me...The bollard pictured on the upper right reminds me of the brilliant Monty Python sketch about the Attack of the Killer Keep-Left Signs.charolastrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17198310727349521010noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-60749677226494778482006-11-22T00:27:00.000+00:002006-11-22T00:27:00.000+00:00Thanks for all the electrical trivia, Paul.
Doug,...Thanks for all the electrical trivia, Paul.<br /><br />Doug, you're right about the history of the term. The etymology beyond that is obscure.<br /><br />David, what I was trying to say is that the AmE for (BrE) <b>queue</b> is <b>line</b>, but one doesn't actually say a <I>traffic line</I>, so that was problematic. But to me a traffic queue is not the same as a traffic jam, so I was having a hard time thinking of what I'd say for 'a line of cars waiting for their turn to go'. We probably don't need a word for this so much in AmE because we don't have so many chicanes and (BrE) <b>roundabouts</b>/(AmE, or at least New England AmE) <b>traffic circles</b>.lynneguisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10171345732985610861noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-4059057574360928932006-11-21T19:12:00.000+00:002006-11-21T19:12:00.000+00:00There is an Irish road sign that says "Yeild" (Iri...There is an Irish road sign that says "Yeild" (Irish signage is a little special - for a long time distances were shown in km but speed limits were in mph - we fixed that last year!) You don't often hear the word "yeild" otherwise.<br /><br />We have "speed bumps", "traffic cones" and "electricity pylons". The construsts that mobile phones talk to are "mobile phone masts" rather than pylons.<br /><br />Did you mean to say "traffic jam" when you compared Br "traffic" to Am "queue"?David Malonenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-85578727469940862692006-11-21T16:34:00.000+00:002006-11-21T16:34:00.000+00:00Bollard is originally (AFAIK) a term of nautical j...<b>Bollard</b> is originally (AFAIK) a term of nautical jargon. Aboard a ship or on a dock, a bollard is the post about which one wraps a mooring line to secure the ship to the dock.<br /><br />If you have ever seen these posts, the decision to use the same term for the sort in streets is obvious.Doug Sundsethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06643242114480161908noreply@blogger.com